Today's News

On June 6 and June 7 the adult choir at First United Methodist Church is again joining forces with Holy Family Catholic Church to make a joyful noise to the Lord. Several other area churches also have members in the group.

The combined forces will present “I Can Only Imagine Heaven”, which is a work celebrating the joys of heaven. It also reminds us, once again, of the price Jesus paid to secure our heavenly home.

Morriston Baptist Church, through “Almost Heaven Mission” will collect supplies for flood victims pf Southeastern West Virginia through June 9. Items needed include water, non-perishable food and cleaning supplies. The church will deliver the supplies it collects in mid-June.

You may drop off donations during business hours Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. until 2 p.m. For more information, call 528-4080.

A June 16 public hearing on a mining application by the Levy County Commission has been put on hold until all the Ts are crossed and the Is are dotted.

The commission decided to delay the hearing on the recommendation after Development Director Rob Corbitt asked to hold them back because all the landowners have not signed off on the special exception permit application.

FCAT results are in and they're a mixed bag, to say the least. Levy County School Board saw a report by Director of Secondary Education Patrick Wnek on the schools' grade-by-grade results in each subject, plus comparisons to state numbers, and a lead-in to the county's Deep FRI training for enhanced reading instruction.

In the past week or 10 days, I have read three or four similar accounts of this situation. Without exception, each report contained only half truths, gossip and surprisingly inaccurate statements by Levy County elected officials. Although state laws and Captive Exotic Animal statistics are readily available on the Internet, no one seems inclined to put any effort into accessing them.

Anything I say can be verified and I will try to give site addresses for anyone interested in facts.

You don’t often see a newspaper column written by two people, but Terry and I believe that together we can introduce readers to the local aspects of a wide variety of topics that make national headlines. This column will appear twice each month, and we will be trading off authorship. Hopefully you won’t find this confusing—you can assume that we agree on an issue unless we state otherwise. Here’s the story on how Terry and I came up with our idea to work together….

Last month Barbara and another member of Progressive Voices of Levy County, Drollene Brown, handed out single-payer literature at the farmer’s market in Williston. Almost everyone was willing to stop and discuss the issue. Most agreed that every American should have equal access to comprehensive health care. And some shared their own health care-related nightmares, such as the man who told how his employer had quit paying for health insurance in order to keep everyone’s wages the same, but then cut everyone’s wages anyway.

There is a fight going on right now in Levy County, a fight between a neighborhood and a few who want to put a rock mine in our backyard. They have a lot of claims about how it would benefit our community, but, we know better.

I am asking the citizens of Williston to get involved with us in Montbrook to stop the mine on CR 322. It will only be a few miles from your city limits, near your schools and your backyards. Just remember, when the wind blows from the south, the dust and the noise may be headed your way.

Army Pvt. William M. Vaughan has graduated from basic combat training at Fort Jackson, Columbia, S.C.

During the nine weeks of training, the soldier studied the Army mission, history, tradition and core values, physical fitness, and received instruction and practice in basic combat skills, military weapons, chemical warfare and bayonet training, drill and ceremony, marching, rifle marksmanship, armed and unarmed combat, map reading, field tactics, military courtesy, military justice system, basic first aid, foot marches, and field training exercises.